


Understanding

by e_wills



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 06:19:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14889254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/e_wills/pseuds/e_wills
Summary: Hiccup always hated the phrase, "You'll understand when you're older."Well, now he's older, and he does understand.





	Understanding

“One day, yeh’ll get it. One day, yeh’ll understand.”

Hiccup had grown tired of hearing that. 

Ever since he had been old enough to comprehend the words, his father had said the same thing: an infuriating phrase the chief would employ whenever he wanted to be obnoxiously paternal. It never came with any additional explanation. Often, it left a young boy to stand in his father’s colossal shadow, pouting. Inquisitive and bright, Hiccup always felt insulted when reprimands were followed by such vague reasoning.

Of course, Stoick the Vast had every right to be protective when he wrested a sword from seven-year-old Hiccup’s small hands. 

“The blade is sharp and dangerous,” would have been suitable enough rebuttal to a boy’s protest. Even something as authoritarian as, “Because I am your father and I say so!” would have been effective. 

Instead, his father gave him a tender and sympathetic stare that was so confusing you Hiccup's young, developing mind.

“One day, yeh’ll get it. One day, yeh’ll understand,” he had heard.

But that day had not come by the age of ten; and Stoick left him on the docks while he, and many other Hooligan parents, set sail for the swirling fog of Helheim’s Gate. Nor had it come when Hiccup was dragged by his tunic into the sweltering smithy to apprentice under the intimidating Gobber the Belch. Hiccup was no closer to understanding those enigmatic words when his father confined him to the house during dragon raids, and publicly rebuked his more creative efforts to kill the beasts.

“Why won’t you let me out there, dad? I’ll never know if my inventions work if you don’t give me the chance!” Hiccup had insisted, when he was just newly fifteen and plenty foolhardy.

It was a tired argument, several years too stale for any real passion to be left in it.

“Yeh could get hurt,” was his father’s gruff response, sharpening his axe at the table without as much as a half-glance at his son.

“So could you. So could everyone! It’s part of being a Viking!”

“Not fer ye.”

“Because I’m Berk’s only heir. Is that it?” Hiccup grumbled back. “Well, I suppose that’s the  _one thing_  that makes me worth anything to anyone around here.”

Stoick stood up, chair creaking as his weight shifted forward. 

Hiccup had not yet hit those much needed growth spurts, far shorter than the other teens his age; and much too diminutive to be worthy of his father’s legacy. He cast his gaze to the floor but not before he registered that old, odd expression. It was not quite pity, and not quite affectionate. Nor was it the withering scowl he was used to.

“One day, yeh’ll get it. One day, yeh’ll understand,” was all Stoick had said.

But that phrase was just as perplexing and irritating at twenty as it had ever been—even though their relationship had changed for the better. Instead of disappointment, Hiccup’s father was bursting with pride to the point it was uncomfortable to be around the man. The Chief’s boasting around the village, and his inconvenient, spontaneous bear-hugs, kept Hiccup regularly embarrassed. Stoick would strike up the Great Hall into a celebratory atmosphere whenever Hiccup won a dragon race—or Astrid, for that matter—as if it was some novel thing. 

Then, there was the exuberant fantasizing of a wedding and grandchildren to come; so many,  _many_ grandchildren—and it caused him no shame to say it. He was relentless, and more than once Astrid had thrown out a weak excuse to scurry off, leaving Hiccup to bear the brunt of his father’s glowing pride alone.

“Why do you do that?” Hiccup asked once, exasperated. He watched his girlfriend fly off on her dragon, wanting desperately to join her. “We’re not even engaged yet. You’re going to scare her away.”

His father had just chuckled and clapped him hard on the back. Hiccup was no longer so tiny, so his knees did not buckle. But his eyes still rolled at the predictable adage that followed: “One day, yeh’ll get it. One day, yeh’ll understand.”

And Hiccup wished he  _did_  get it. Fiercely so. Maybe then, he could have known what had been going on in his father’s head that day, facing off against Drago Bludvist and the Bewilderbeast. Maybe Hiccup could have shouted  _something_ else—something that might have stopped his father from diving in the way; from taking the plasma blast that was never meant for him. Hiccup was going to dodge it, after all. He knew Toothless, and he knew the dragon’s timing… 

But his father had sprinted down that beach as if there was no force in Asgard that could have stopped him.  _Why?_ After everything, did Stoick not trust his son? Did he still doubt Hiccup despite his extensive knowledge and skills with dragons?  _What_  had possessed the chief to do something so impulsive?

Why did love have to overthrow common sense?

Hiccup had been angry for a long time, shedding tears of bitterness and grief alone in the darkness, or with only Astrid and Toothless to witness it. He did not blame his father, but he hurt deeply from the void the great man had left behind. 

His was such a senseless death that never should have occurred, but did for reasons Hiccup could not fully grasp. His father was an intelligent man, and his sacrifice was unnecessary. So there was guilt.  _So much guilt_ , and sadness. Hiccup could rationalize it in his head—a parent’s unconditional love for their child—but he could not fully understand or empathize.

Until her.

She was precious bundle in his arms, so round and pink-faced, swaddled in furs. Freydis blinked up at him, blue eyes brighter and more vibrant than a cloudless day. She cooed, laughed, smiled that toothless little grin…and Hiccup’s heart was full.

A bit of him and plenty of Astrid, Freydis was perfect. She was the center of everything, filling him with a love far greater and far more powerful than anything he knew. He never expected to feel so much—to love someone so completely. How was it possible? Sane, even? His hopes and dream for the future were embodied by such a fragile thing. Before her, Hiccup had thought only Astrid and Toothless were incomparable in his life. True, his dragon and his wife still meant so much to him–vital to his existence, really–and though he would gladly die for either one, the love he had for them had been the necessary components in creating  _her_.

Toothless had set Hiccup’s relationship with Astrid in motion, and their whole wonderful life together had been steeping stones to a new level of completion. Everything in Hiccup’s life had been leading him to her.

…To the moment where he could kiss her smooth, tiny cheek, stare up at his father’s likeness chiseled in stone, and finally say, “I understand.”


End file.
